Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 30/100

Heart 3,240,000/3,240,000

Experience 454,845/810,000

Mithril 3,722

Adamantine 2,209

Mana 6,420

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

Quest: Kill 87 city dwellers.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 43/66 | Monsters 14/67 | Traps 80/162

Quest: Reach level 50.

While Anichka and Astrid talked to the new arrival, once they were within his second entrance, Travis realized the name was familiar. "She's my lawyer, I think. I guess I should talk to her."

Astrid gave the slightest of nods, acknowledging that she'd heard him. "Travis wishes to speak with you. Follow me." She led the way to the tavern, which on the whole was only about thirty steps from the entrance, but there was a difference between wandering somewhere and being led by eight feet of humanoid wolf.

Sitting at one of the little tables (little compared to her), Astrid looked at the woman who sat down opposite. "You needed to talk to him?"

"Oh, uh. Not exactly. I wanted to see his dungeon." Brevity seemed to relax a little before replying, "I mostly have kin as my clients, you see. Arguing on behalf of a dungeon was quite a surprise. Lord Constance, the lord of the court that oversaw the case, admitted that he hadn't seen the like of it before."

"I'm getting a weird vibe from her," Travis said to Astrid, "not bad—just weird—but that seems pretty common around here. Sorry to put you on the spot with her, but Steph is busy talking with the council and Celeste is discussing business with Liz." When Astrid raised an eyebrow, he mentally sighed. "Just a little strange."

Astrid tilted her head then nodded and, laughing, Astrid said, "I'm Travis' third choice. Great. Well, if you want to see anything in the dungeon, I can show it to you. Might need some help getting around the deeper parts, because of some explosives that will go off if you get close, but I can get someone to help." She paused for a moment, then asked, "You deal with laws?"

Travis was as curious as he suspected Brevity was, given her surprised expression.

When Brevity nodded, Astrid explained, "I'm Balavian. Travis saved me from my own stupidity. No, Travis, don't argue. He offered to let me work off what debt we invented between us, but later I made the choice to become a minion for him. Where does that leave my status in the kingdom?"

"I'm not an expert on that, but you should know that none of Travis' minions have any protected status. Dungeon monster killing can be penalized at a city level, but outside of their local city, you—and everyone from this dungeon—can be murdered without any repercussions.

"Would my client desire me to change that? I regret it won't be as easy, or as cheap, as having a local dungeon sanctioned, but with the right team I believe I could secure you and yours protection to a similar level as common citizens enjoy."

"Tell her to name a price," Travis told Astrid, "and then, if she needs more, double it."

"Travis says do it. Figure out what it will cost, and he'll pay for it." Astrid hated negotiating where money was concerned. Try as she might, it felt wrong to use money when force had always been her trade. "And if you need more, he'll pay that too. He enjoys spending money like I enjoy hunting."

"I noticed that when I saw the gift you sent to the King. You will get an answer as soon as he's done counting it, I'm sure." While not sounding exactly money-hungry, Brevity certainly couldn't keep eagerness from her voice.

"You're not unlike me, I think," Astrid said. She waited for the lawyer to blink a few times in surprise before continuing. "You are hungry to hunt. I can smell it on you."

Brevity looked prepared to deny the accusation, but finally nodded. "In a way, yes. My normal clients are cities wishing to sanction a poorly acting dungeon, or even a trade group demanding access to a verdant one. Very rarely do cases involving an active dungeon come my way that have any kind of happy ending. Your dungeon, Travis, is unique in the history of the kingdom. New laws will be required specifically to accommodate you and your people."

Narrowing her eyes, evaluating the words, Astrid nodded. "You are a wolf, then. A wolf seeking glory from combat. Your weapon is your mind, and the glory you seek is to be known as a mighty warrior."

Travis pondered the similarity and the framing. "You might be overthinking it, Astrid, but at the same time it might be right. Everyone wants to leave their name on the history books somewhere." When he got a shrug for a reply from her, he took it as a good sign to leave it be.

Stephan looked across the table at the three. "It's only a matter of time, now. The King should send official word via a royal courier, along with some witnesses to swear you into your titles pending a summons to the capital for full investiture."

"That's the big hurdle, right? We know someone is paying attention to Northridge, and at least someone in Far Reach is challenging us." On the whole, it was the most annoying thing about founding a city, so far as Brolly Windchime was concerned. "Will we all have to go together?"

"No. Given you're all leaders of the city, the King will call on you one at a time. It's not good to leave a young city without a guiding hand." Flipping the paperwork around in his claws, Stephan moved on. "Next order of business, dealing with the perpetual interruption to our plans for a railway. Travis suggested a good idea."

Perking up, Christine gave her best tired smile. Meetings had become far more busy and intense lately, and it was all because their southern neighbor was sending caravans. "What is it?"

Practically feeling the stress rolling out from Christine, Stephan smiled and gave her a nod. "We will send a delegation to Hearthhome and offer to build a railway to them, skirting around Far Reach."

"Huh?" Christine tried to make sense of the words. "But it's nearly three times as far to Hearthhome as it is to Far Reach."

"Closer to four, once we avoid all of Far Reach's claimed land. We will need to have guards regularly along the line in forts. Sabotage and wild animals would be an issue. That would mean we have to charge more to pay for repairs and guards. The most important part would be making Far Reach nervous that we are cutting them out of our revenue chain. It will discourage any further blocking and, hopefully, make them come to us before we go further than talking to Hearthhome."

"Sorry, I am having trouble keeping up here. My workload has been increasing thanks to all the new trade, and I can't find anyone who would be of help. Liz offered, but for all she's got all the right credentials—but she's new to the city." Christine had to stifle a yawn.

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"She's new, but she has been of assistance to us," Stephan said, musing on the problem. "I'll ask around the kobolds for anyone with experience as a clerk. If you'd like, I could spend a day now and then—"

"I'd marry you in a heartbeat if you could help me get six hours of uninterrupted sleep." The look Christine leveled at Stephan, she hoped, made sure he knew she was joking. "Howard, would you be willing to make the trip to Hearthhome?"

"Yes, of course." Howard didn't feel much better than Christine looked. His own work had been growing, though not as fast as hers, and she was far younger and more capable of recovering from late nights and early mornings. "We'll need to wait until after the courier brings us news of the titles. Perhaps I could even do it on my way back from being invested?"

"That would be excellent," Stephan said. "I suspect we have at least one saboteur in Northridge already. I'll try to organize some traps to catch them, but keep an eye out for someone acting strange or, worse, helpful."

All four froze; not so much as breathing. Brolly was the first to recover and say the name that had jumped to the front of all their minds: "Liz."

Eliza laughed as she processed the stack of inventories from traveling merchants. "It's no problem, really. I said I'd help." Help with the task she'd engineered to be a problem. It didn't take a lot of work, after all, to persuade merchants to bring all manner of useless junk to Northridge.

For Christine, keeping a viper close was better than giving them room to edge around to your back. Her time spent building a minor trade empire stood her in good stead for lying in the woman's face. "I still have no idea why they'd bring low grade steel all the way here. They're not the only one, either. It's almost like someone is deliberately posting false requests."

Had she gone too far? Eliza didn't think so. There was no connection between her and the group spreading the false messages. "If you'd like, I could go and take a look around. I'm sure I could figure out if it was deliberate or just some fool writing out your messages wrong."

"Oh, please, no. I have both our hands full dealing with things here. You are fine with the pay to handle this, right?" It was the one part of the ploy Christine hated—paying their spy. The more annoying thing was that if Eliza had been honest, she'd have made a great addition to the city. "Do you have the paperwork on the reply to our request for rail connection?"

Turning in her chair to the cabinet beside her, Eliza quickly found what Christine was after. "No luck again, I'm afraid. Someone in Far Reach has a stick up their butt about this one." Which was exactly what Eliza had planned. That particular problem would be solved by the scion on their way to Northridge. It was one of Eliza's more standard setups: a big problem impedes the growth of the city, the leaders can't handle it, in walks a noble who is honest and helpful and clears up all these problems like a snap, said noble takes a leave of absence, the problems return—and then their hero returns to fix things.

"Typical. There's always a palm that needs more grease. I was thinking of sending Howard to take care of it, but he has to visit his nephew." That was the official word, and Christine's next task was to ensure that Eliza didn't find out about the title ceremony. It would be easy enough, since Travis was the ultimate distraction.

"This is not your council building."

Howard Tailor smiled and nodded. "I understand the confusion, but our council building is all business. This hall is far more suited to get-togethers and social functions; though with our recent visitors from the north, those have been in short supply."

Nodding, the young man looked around. "Suitable, then. You will all be present for the ceremony, and you understand I—" He stopped talking as a woman came in, walked up to the two of them, and then stopped. "Is something the matter?"

Christine Sellswell didn't dress in rags. She had good cotton and wool clothing, fine boots, and even enjoyed the luxury of modern undergarments, but what the man before her was wearing would leave her best fashion choices as poor reflections of what clothing could be. "Your Highness, I am Christine Sellswell. Sorry to arrive late, but we have a minor problem that needed dealing with. Brolly Windchime is on his way."

It wasn't common for people so far from the capital to recognize when a representative of the king was actually one of his sons, but Stewart Brave nodded his head in acknowledgment of the title. "A problem more important than your investiture?"

Sighing, Christine started to explain, "The reason behind the investiture move is that we knew we'd eventually have a noble house make a move to wrest—"

"Ease," Howard said.

"Right. They want to take hold of a new city that seems to be doing well for itself, without risking one of their little sh—"

"Scions."

"Right. Sure enough, we found one such agent trying to manipulate events to import some—scion." Christine didn't need to have ten years of studying faces under her belt to see the mirth and consternation mixed on Stewart's face. "So, to distract her from this ceremony, I took her to the local dungeon and left her there."

That got Stewart's attention. "You left her in a dungeon?"

"While I'd have liked to leave her in the hostile one outside Northridge, since that isn't for vermin such as vipers anymore, I put her in our resident ally dungeon. She is absolutely safe—more's the pity." Christine heard armored footfalls behind her. "That is, hopefully, our commander of the guard now."

Brolly Windchime was annoyed. He had been overseeing the deployment of cannons around Breeze's fort when he'd gotten word his attendance was required. What was worse, in his book, this was all a bunch of wasted time and money to stop outside interference from nobles when he could just not let them into the city in the first place. "How long will this take?"

"Not long, I assure you. These are your portfolios, your titles are, naturally, baron and baroness. My father was more than happy with your pledges to the strength of the kingdom, and he assures you that you three are, and your families shall be, his chosen representatives in Northridge.

"Your titles are from now, until such time as you die or lose the King's favor—in effect. You can attend upon the King at your earliest convenience to be formally recognized, but that's a minor thing and more that he would like to meet you in person. I managed to secure you a member of the College of Arms to attend—she was in my retinue. I'll leave her in your care to design each of you a coat befitting your city."

"There was another thing." Christine hadn't talked to anyone about it, but of everyone she knew short of the king, his son would be the one to ask. "As I mentioned before, we have a dungeon that's an ally. I am not sure if you were briefed on it—him—but we will be declaring Travis—the dungeon—as a person of standing within Northridge. All his workers and monsters too."

"Is that wise? It's a verdant dungeon, I take it?"

"No. Travis is a dragon dungeon, and one that has proved his loyalty to Northridge and its people many times over. What I'd like to ask is how would we go about extending this protection under the precinct of the entire kingdom?"

Stewart sucked on his teeth. It was an old habit from his youth he'd not quite managed to shake. "I will talk to my father when I return. Can you stand as witnesses on the dungeon's behalf?" He got three solid nods that impressed him a little. "A little—"

"Another million?" Christine asked.

"If it's in adamantine again, that would be more than enough." It was a weird situation, but he knew how much his father loved equipping his army with the best materiel, and getting huge wagons full of adamantine had caused the King to take much notice of this little city that was still finding its legs. "The only other thing here is you all need to take a knee."

Howard, Brolly, and Christine did so.

"As a representative of the King and with his command, I welcome you three, Baron Brolly Windchime, Baroness Christine Sellswell, and Baron Howard Tailor, to the peerage and wish you and your lineages good tidings in the rulership of Northridge."

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